Diabolical
by Black-Tie-Plum
Summary: Arthur; a young and famous rock-star, forms a contract with a Russian demon in the hope that a deal may help him find happiness. Arthur is transported to a paradise where he meets Francis; a Frenchman with no idea of who Arthur is. Will Arthur be able to find the happiness he so badly craves, or will he be cheated out of his happily ever after by the scheming purple-eyed demon?
1. Chapter 1

**See the end of the chapter for the AN. **

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Arthur Kirkland, aka the baby of punk rock: one of the most famous teenagers in the world. He'd rocketed to fame at the age of fourteen alongside his three older brothers when their début album topped charts the world over. 'The Kirkland Clan' whooshed through the ranks of the music industry to reach iconic status in a record breaking three years. After reaching the very pinnacle of greatness, a high of success that no one would have ever predicted they could achieve, Arthur finally cracked.

The world came to a jarring halt when for no apparent reason, the then aged seventeen band member walked off stage in the middle of a concert and disappeared without trace for three months.

There was a collective sigh of relief when Arthur eventually resurfaced. After hiding in his home-town he had admitted himself to a rehab centre for alcohol abuse. It was only then that the illusion of 'The Kirkland Clan' came crashing down and the sordid secrets, arguments, drug abuse, amongst other things were all presented to the press wrapped in a neat bow.

The band never recovered. Arthur refused to return and without him the clan faded into obscurity, a memory and lesson of how success is a double ended sword. A painful example of how no one can have the good without the bad. Arthur; the most loved member of the band went on to forge a solo career. He wrote songs for other artists and bands, he collaborated, and after one of the worst years of his life, he formed a new band. Once again he found himself standing on the top of the charts, looking down at a world that worshipped and adored him.

At the opening night of the first concert for the band 'Albion Sins', Arthur made his first performance since his break from The Kirkland Clan. The crowd was transfixed, as Arthur naughtily bit his lower, raising his eyes skyward, one could almost hear the audience's collective swoon. He purred out meaningful, emotive lyrics in such a way that he automatically wormed his way back into the heart's of his fans that had flocked in the thousands. It was like he'd never been gone.

He emerged from the concert triumphant and wearing a mysterious lopsided smirk.

The next day he attended an interview and a photo shoot. The interview passes without insistence But during the shoot, his personality disturbed the crew; randomly switching from a feisty, swaggering presence to that of a cipher-like, shy adolescent and to all shades and tones between. He obediently danced for the camera; jutting his chin up, flashing a smile, scowling, standing, sitting, laughing. His cheekbones, devilish green eyes, and gnarled dancer's body worked well in front of the camera, but the cracks were starting to show when he opened his mouth. The people at the photo shoot were awarded a rare glimpse of Arthur Kirkland stripped back, a raw version of his on stage persona. The confusing breadth of emotions he portrayed gave the people around him an inkling of his damaged mind. They felt disturbed and full of pity. The poor boy didn't know how to behave like a human; he could only convey snippets of human emotion, short sketches that would fool audiences and chat show hosts, but for whatever reason his acts were crumbling and his personas merging. To those there at the photo shoot, it was like they were viewing a car crash; in reverse, sped up, and slowed down all at once. It was the warped mind of the young celebrity struggling to put together his own personality, the boy's psyche was a jigsaw puzzle but he couldn't find the corners and all the pieces were sky.

The weird, satanic-looking tattoos and haunting scars on his body that were in plain view scared the crew further. They would be photo shopped into flawless, unblemished pale flesh, but the angry, tribal-looking marks would never fade in real life. Each one told a story that the crew could only speculate about: "He did those with a razor", "He got them in a fight", "I heard that it had something to do with acid!"

The crew felt bad when Arthur's chaperone took his arm and roughly secured him in the back of a dark vehicle with tinted windows. Arthur's departure left a bad taste in the air and for the next hour or so the crew moped around guiltily, not sure why they felt so depressed.

When the car drove off, Arthur began writhing and screaming. He screeched at the top of his lungs, cursing fluently in rhyme. His inhumanly large chaperone restrained him with stoic detachment, not even reacting when Arthur sunk his teeth deeply into the man's skin with extreme force.

It took less than five minutes for the car to near the radio studio where Arthur was scheduled to perform a cover. When the rowdy crowd of fans came into view, Arthur immediately stopped everything and sat stock still. It shocked his chaperone, who loosened his grip by a fraction.

But that was all Arthur needed to escape. He rolled out of the vice-like grip, swiftly opened the passenger door, and dove majestically out of the vehicle that was moving at approximately twenty miles an hour. As Arthur rolled away from the car and sprinted away from the scene the car skidded to a halt as Arthur's driver and chaperone started shouting profanities.

Arthur ran like the devil was chasing him and even as he started feeling a burning stitch bite his side he resiliently kept on sprinting at his top speed.

He could feel the frigid and bitter air ribbon around him as he passed a road that led to the Thames embankment and he had never felt so free in his life. He felt like after spending all his life in captivity, he'd finally broken out.

Although able to weave his woes out into beautiful songs and allowed to perform with pride, he didn't even know what it meant to be him. He'd never had the chance to share a meaningful relationship with anyone. His brothers were all as fucked up as he was, it was just that they weren't controlled and monitored to the same degree as Arthur. Arthur had never had the chance to find himself, everything had to be a spotless act and improvisation was forbidden.

His running slowed to a brisk walk and Arthur came to the realisation that he had run an awfully long way. He found himself in the back-streets of the worst part of London. The roads had turned from brightly-lit and bustling to almost pitch black and deathly silent. Uneven cobbles hindered Arthur's ability to be agile, the crevasses and peaks along the narrow roads became death-traps in the night. Arthur could hear cars and what sounded like animalistic screaming; it made him imagine cat-crow hybrid monstrosities. Well versed in the occult, Arthur was all too aware that he was wondering close to one of the five magical hotspots in London. The five plots could be joined together in a pentagram shape and a circular underground river enclosed the star. Arthur had never set foot within the circle or the star as he knew that once he crossed the threshold, someone like him would not be allowed to ever leave.

In normal circumstances Arthur would steer well clear of the hotspots, but today he knew he had nothing to lose. Hurriedly, he removed his coat, turned it inside out, and put in back on, fastening all the buttons and pulling up his hood. He stopped to listen to the screams and to the new addition of an echoing dripping tap. The beating of his heart sped up to synchronise with the unnaturally loud sound of water meeting stone. The noise reverberated around the inside of Arthur's skull and he breathed and blinked in time to it.

Arthur took a sharp left down a dingy alley that was at a push two metres across. The dripping intensified and as Arthur continued down the road, flanked by decaying, window-less buildings he became aware of heavy footfalls joining in with the symphony of noise that only Arthur could hear. The road came to a dead end and without thought; Arthur lifted up a curtain of linoleum that hung over an empty doorway and ducked into the pitch black building.

The footsteps and dripping didn't stop, but at this point Arthur was certain that the noises were in his head and that they were most likely a warning that something incredibly horrific was about to take place. Rounding a corner Arthur could see a large area full of make-shift homes made from rubbish and petrified faces turning to stare at him, directly in front of him a parked car smouldered irritably, furious black smoke pumping out of the open bonnet. A rat scurried over Arthur's foot and he saw a man scoop it up and put it in his pocket. That same man apprehensively approached a silent and disgusted Arthur, "You lost, Sir?" he asked hoarsely. When Arthur didn't respond, the man flinched and began gesturing erratically; with a newly fearful tone he hurriedly started speaking. "Brick Lane that way. Station that way. Hotel that way. Police that way." And when he finished, he ran away to hide behind a skip.

Arthur however, stood still, staring at nothing, he hadn't heard a single word the man had said over the migraine inducing racket in his head. He was almost hypnotised by the softly flickering flames inside the charred car. He wondered if the tramps had set fire to the car in order to make a bonfire. It was quite cold after all and the heat coming from the burning vehicle was enough to make Arthur regret continuing past as he was pulled by an invisible force.

Arthur turned into another alley and when all the noise in his head evaporated suddenly and without warning he stopped walking. He was standing directly in the middle of the pentagram and he couldn't shake the feeling of disappointment at the fact that there was nothing other than an empty alley-way. He had been expecting a swarm of demons or maybe a coven of witches chanting around a cauldron. He had been expecting something.

"Disappointed?"

The whispered vocal equivalent of cutlery scraping fine china that came from the inside of his head, knocked the air out of his lungs and he turned to see a tall man shrouded in the heavy darkness like it was a tailored cloak. Arthur swallowed and grabbed his left wrist, the place where a bracelet of Pagan symbols had been tattooed. "A little." He answered defiantly whilst tracing the ancient markings with his index finger.

"Most are not disappointed once they see me." They shadows said in the same rattling tone that sounded to now be coming from the other end of a phone call with bad connection, "Those symbols on your wrist will do none of the protecting. They are useless." Arthur could still not make out the person (?) in front of him, but the shadows were swirling less and were settling into a human-like shape.

"Good." Arthur spat, "I don't want t be protected."

"Yes you do. It is human nature to crave safety and protection, da?" From within the shadows, neon violet eyes blinked open and crinkled happily; almost condescendingly. The voice echoing out from the shadows changed like someone was tuning a radio. It became clearer and more human. To Arthur's dismissed fear, it sounded child-like and cheerful.

"And what, pray tell, would a despicable creature such as yourself know about human-nature?" Arthur spat disdainfully and the violet eyes blinked.

"All that there is to know." The shadows answered, pulsing violently before imploding towards the lavender eyes. Tendrils of darkness retreated and folded in on themselves until they made the silhouette of a tall and bulky man. "And if you insist on being the rude, I will leave and the imps will come and feast on your intestines." A gas street-light flickered on and the shadows were chased away by the yellow glow, revealing a young man with pale skin and roughly the same colour hair. The wash of the light on his skin left the man looking like a phantom wearing a scarf and coat. He was an attractive person, however his features were arranged in an expression of moronic, childish content. Arthur felt unnerved standing in the man's presence, he felt like the man's facial expression was a mask designed expertly to draw in people with its innocence and then when they were close enough the façade would be dropped and they would be lost to the light forever.

"What are you?" Arthur hissed.

"I am Ivan." The demonic man answered.

"Well hello, Ivan. My name is Arthur Kirkland. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, but I wasn't asking you for your name." Arthur sneered condescendingly, before rephrasing his previous question, "Which species do you belong to?"

"I am a demon" Ivan stated simply.

Arthur hummed non-committally and ruffled his hair; feigning boredom. "Why are you here?" Arthur questioned.

"You summoned me," Ivan said smiling with unnerving innocence,

"Summoned you? No I'm sorry; you must have me confused with someone else." Shrugging apologetically Arthur turned and took a step away from the Russian demon.

Suddenly Arthur felt a cold and heavy hand grip his shoulder, swinging him back around to face Ivan, who was so close to Arthur that if the occasion had called upon it, he would have been able to count the demon's eyelashes. A shadow had appeared and the swimming purple-black mass intensified as the demon spoke. "There is only a hour-long window every ten years in which I can be summoned. There is also a very specific ritual that has to take place." Ivan's grip tightened. "You performed the ritual at the right time, da? Now you have no choice but to make a contract with me."

"I didn't summon you, you idiot. And I sure as hell will not be making a contract with you." Arthur sneered at Ivan. He didn't know why he was being so petulant, but he did know that he had lost all regard for his life and in retrospect being murdered by a demon for behaving like an arse would be as good a way to die as any.

Ivan smiled fondly, like Arthur was a pet who had done something mildly humorous. "If we do not make a contract, I will be having to do the killing and I will not be getting to eat your soul." Ivan stepped away from Arthur and his tongue swept briefly over his lip. "I would much like to be eating your soul. There is something you would love to have, da?"

Arthur began to feel uncertain. The demon smiling innocently in front of him had made a very interesting point. There was no possible outcome to the situation in which Arthur came out on top, so he may as well take advantage of the offered contract.

The silence sat heavily on the two men staring intensely at each other. Arthur's chartreuse eyes crackled with the fire of determination, the look a man who had nothing to lose, a man who was foolish enough to cheek a demon.

"I want no one to know my name. I want to go somewhere peaceful where I can find happiness. I want to discover myself." Arthur took a deep breath and narrowed his emerald eyes, "And then and only then may you claim my soul, you vile beast." He scowled and watched as Ivan chewed his lip contemplatively.

"Da, we have a deal." Ivan clasped his hands together and tendrils of purple shadow exploded from him. They shot at Arthur and obliterated everything in his view. He heard a nightmarish laugh, an inhuman, deep-bellied 'kol' sounding oddity. Then a flare of lilac light blinded him into unconsciousness.

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**Hello, my gorgeous chickies. This is my first dip into the scary scary fanfiction community and it would mean so much to me if anyone who has enjoyed this so far would review it. I'm new around these parts so please be gentle with me. ;) Lots of hugs and kisses, **


	2. Chapter 2

Arthur awoke to the gentle rhythm of waves caressing a sandy beach. The air around him felt warm and sticky, as he opened his eyes and stretched out like a cat. The sun was bright and the bed he was lying on was so soft that he could hardly bare to move. But unfortunately, he had become tangled in a ball of Egyptian cotton sheets and his dazed flailing only managed to worsen the knots. His sheets spat him out onto the cold wooden floor where he laid winded and flailing to escape from the cosy clutches of the blankets.

Waking up completely, Arthur shuffled his feet over the bleached white wood and took stock of the place he found himself in. The décor paid homage to British colonial Caribbean: dark ornate furniture, light-weight white linen, clean and simple white walls, and beads hanging from large French doors. Arthur, on realising that he was naked began rummaging through a large chest-of-drawers. He pulled out some items and threw them to the floor in shock, the piece of furniture contained all his favourite items of clothing and a few that he didn't own but immediately fell in love with.

Arthur dressed and with the expression of a child at Christmas, began exploring the room. A large wooden chest at the end of the bed opened to reveal a beautiful guitar and a bookcase in the corner was stocked full of all the classics that Arthur secretly adored. Selecting a large volume from the highest shelf, Arthur hefted it down and the moment his eyes fell on the first page, he was frozen in place. He was swept away to the wondrous expanses of his imagination, where he wondered in awe as the story began to stitch itself into the fabric of his fascination.

A while passed until discomfort brought Arthur back to the world of the living, Arthur knew that he had spent at least two hours reading by the way that both of his legs were completely numb. He had made the grave mistake of sitting with his legs folded beneath him and now he had to pay the price, cringing as the fizzling sensation set in and he had to sit down on his bed. Waiting for the pins and needles to subside felt like an age but once the tingle had disappeared Arthur stood up to see what the view from the balcony was like. Unbeknownst to him, a man by the name Francis was lying on the soft white sand in front of his home and curiosity caused him to look over when Arthur flung open the doors onto the balcony.

Francis glanced up with mild interest, he was unaware that someone was living in the house next to his and he thought to himself that it would be quite nice to have a neighbour. Squinting in the sun, Francis attempted to get a good look at the person on the balcony; however the sun was blazing directly in his eyes and all Francis could see was a vague silhouette. It took a little searching, but Francis was able to find somewhere where he had a perfect view of his neighbour.

The man stood on the balcony was wearing a baggy black vest with a faded logo on the front; it lifted up slightly as he ran both of his hands through his tousled blonde hair, allowing for Francis to catch a glance of a ribbon of pale flesh. Francis crouched next to a large tree just out of sight and he watched as the young man leant his elbows lazily on the balcony and rested is chin on his clasped hands, glaring out at the beautiful seascape as if it had offended him in some way. His face was decorated explicitly with piercings that caught the morning sunlight. Sub-consciously Francis had started to wander towards his neighbour's house, when suddenly he felt himself being assaulted by branches before the world flipped on its side as he tumbled head first down a sand bank until he came to rest on the soft white beach.

"Oi! Are you okay?" Someone shouted. Francis raised his head and saw the man he had been staring at for the last ten minutes running down from his house towards Francis.

"Do not worry yourself, mon ami, I am fine." Francis groaned as his stood up, dusting off his rolled up jeans.

"Ok then, well if you're sure..." The man looked at where Francis had been squatting. "What on Earth were you doing back there?"

With intense emerald eyes and a creamy complexion, Francis would have thought him perfection had his features not been marred by thick monstrous eyebrows. "I was… err…" Francis rubbed the back of his neck and smiled bashfully, "I was looking for my hair ribbon, it must have fallen out." He gave the young man a look that oozed smouldering sexiness and smugly took note of his neighbour's flushed cheeks. "I'm Francis, but you don't have to tell me your name, I know who you are." He voice sounded husky and he curtseyed extravagantly.

At this, Arthur froze and felt the distinct feeling of his insides turning to lead and sinking to the ground. His face lost all colour and he understood what a fish must feel like when plucked from the ocean without warning and left on the beach to flap pathetically. This was not supposed to happen. The demon had agreed to his terms, no one was meant to know who he was. The sinful monster must have lied, after all demons weren't know for being the most virtuous of creatures. Arthur had expected Ivan to stick to the hardly demanding condition to the contract.

Francis however, was standing in front of Arthur completely oblivious and flashing a coy grin, his blue eyes sparkling mischievously with an unambiguous come-hither look. He winked at Arthur, "You are beautiful. That's your name, oui?" Francis chuckled when a deep burgundy blush erupted from Arthur's ears.

Arthur had never felt himself go from feeling petrified and cheated to flustered and relieved in such a brief period of time and that made him feel furious. He brutally shoved Francis to the ground; he almost laughed at the unblemished look of confused shock on the Frenchman's face, but stopped himself. "Kirkland, Arthur Kirkland, that's my name and nothing else, don't you dare call me something so repulsive again." The angry Brit stomped off back to his house and Francis; dazed and amused, stared at his retreating form, his eyes concentrating on one pert trouser-clad area, mind you. Francis laughed again and brushed sand from his jeans; he got up and walked back to his house. He was definitely going to purse the feisty man and was prepared to try to woo him the next time they crossed paths.

Safe and sound back in his home, Arthur wasn't quite sure what to think. He had only ever been paid compliments because of his career and had thought that no one would look twice at him once his success had been stripped from his arsenal. The thought that maybe he had a chance without relying on super-stardom as he had in all previous romantic pursuits. This made Arthur feel fuzzy and he felt immensely happy with himself, although maybe he had scared Francis off by shoving him quite violently. He would make a conscious effort to apologise the next time they met and maybe he would able to befriend the attractive man.

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**Hey chickies. This chapter was so boring to write, but I did and I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for reading and please review.**


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